Thursday, June 28, 2012

Seoul

On Revisiting the Capitol

Mokdong Baseball Stadium, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Doosan Bears vs. Nexen Heroes
Mokdong Baseball Stadium
Korea Professional Baseball
Seoul, South Korea
6:30 PM


Outside of the Game:
Sometimes, I really do hate myself. I mean, really. At what point did a 7 AM train back to Seoul seemed like a good idea? For some reason, I had picked all early trains for the trip, most likely to make sure I'm getting where I'm going, but these early mornings for the first week and a half were really starting to add up. The good news, such as it is, was that this would be my last early morning train before the flight home. I was planning to be in Seoul for the rest of the trip, and outside of switching hotels once to go to the traditional inn after I was done with the baseball games, there would be no more of this madness.

My 5:45 AM wake-up call was greeted warmly and with great charity, and I started the process again of dumping all my remaining crap into my bags to get to the train station across town. I got two steps out the front door of the hotel before a taxi asked me if I wanted a ride, and, as I dragged my cement-on-a-stick bag and contemplated all the stairs I was yet to encounter, the answer quickly became, yes--yes, I do want a ride.

Busan Station
Busan Station, early

I zoned out in the back of the cab for the majority of the trip, paying the nice man at the station and dragging myself into the morning again. By taking a cab, I had enough time to grab some breakfast. The Loteria upstairs was opened, and I figured, why not? I groggily ordered a chicken sandwich and sat down to eat. Something was vaguely bothering me, prompting some internal discussion.

"What kind of chicken sandwich was this?"
"I think it was the 'hot chicken sandwich,' now that you mention it."
"'Hot.' Hmm. That's probably not a great idea, is it? Hey, what's that smell?"
"Oh, that? I believe it is our immortal soul being burned away by the purging fires of Hell, why do ask?"
"No reason. Hey, where's the water?"

After my breakfast, I got onto the train to Seoul and finished up my scorecard from the night before and tried to catch up on this thing, while a salaryman (or the Korean counterpart thereof) next to me furiously worked on some hand-made analog spreadsheet.

Dumped back in Seoul Station, this time it was only a short subway ride to my new hotel, which was located right in the middle of things in downtown. As this was the sixth day straight that I was dragging all my stuff around in the morning, I very much appreciated the short trip about as much as I eagerly anticipated not having to do any trip the next day. I had to leave my bags at the hotel before check in, so I went out again to do some seeing of the sights.

I wandered south of the hotel towards a big park, but I only made it as far as the very northern end, where there was Namsangol Hanok Village, a recreated traditional Korean village. Because of the great loss of Korean history and heritage due to countless invasions and wars both ancient and recent, they government gathered up some remaining extant examples of traditional and historical Korean houses and moved them all to this created "village." In addition to the houses, the village held recreations and audience participation events of Korean crafts, folk art, and other cultural events. It was all pretty interesting, but the signs that warm you to watch your head are not just there for decoration. The Koreans in the past were even shorter than Koreans now, and even though they have helpfully padded the doorways, I nearly knocked myself out by standing up to quickly going through a door and had a nice welt to remind me not to be stupid for the next day or so.

Namasangol Hanok Village
Yi Sengeop's House

There was also a giant time capsule on the grounds of the village that I walked to when I had a singular experience. As I was taking the winding ramp down to the capsule, I ran into a Korean schoolboy, who immediately launched into his English practice with me. But then, when we said the goodbyes, he immediately dashed off, which I found odd. Thinking maybe shyness got the better of him, I continued to walk down, but around the next corner, I found the boy dragging along a friend of his back in my direction, and I had to go through English practice one more time with a new student. Finally satisfied, they ran back down to the time capsule. When I eventually got down there, the adult who was chaperoning them around gave me a little bow for my perseverance, as the two boys were still excitedly talking, presumably about meeting me. It is good to be a celebrity.

I went out of the village and started to walk down to the rest of the park, when I came across the Seoul Cartoon Museum. This is on the grounds of an animation school/production company, and as anyone with some knowledge of cartoons knows, much of the animation for American cartoons (including one of my favorites, The Venture Brothers) is done offshore in Korea, where the costs are much lower than America. The museum struck my fancy, so I went in, pleased to find it was free. It was a modest affair, with some exhibits on major cartoons from Seoul on one floor and a large library/viewing area on another. The walls were lined with some exhibits, but mostly it was row upon row of animated titles, with a central with pod seats so you could watch the shows. There were one or two twenty-somethings decked out watching anime when I was there, and one woman with her family who was asking me why I was here and if I liked cartoons. The limits of my Korean didn't allow an answer of, "Well, yeah, the animation for adults such as the US Cartoon Network's 'Adult Swim' are great favorites of mine," so I went with, "Yes, very much," which seemed to be satisfactory.

Seoul Cartoon Museum
Seoul Cartoon Museum

After spending some time, it was well after lunch, so on the way back to the hotel, I decided to bite the bullet and visit a McDonalds, making it about the twelfth country in which I've ordered a number 1 Big Mac Meal. As with most of the other countries, it was just like an American Big Mac, just competently executed with slightly different packaging. I also needed to grab more money at an international ATM and head back to the hotel.

McDonalds
#1 meal, please

Once I got checked in, I headed up to my room and immediately began getting my stuff out for tomorrow and re-packing before I realized that I didn't need to do that, as I would be staying in the same place for more than one day. I was filled with a profound sense of joy at that moment. I then went through my dirty clothes, hung up anything still wet, found several items in need of serious laundering, and brought them down to the front desk for laundry service on my way out to the game.

Thanks to the central location of the hotel, I only had to jump on one subway, and it was a straight shot to Mokdong. The subway station was relatively close to the stadium, so it wasn't too hard to get to there or back after the game. Although the game was a little longer than average, I still got back at a decent enough time to take a soak in the tub and watch some TV before bed, especially since I didn't have an early train to catch the next morning. Can you tell I was a bit excited about that?


The Stadium and Fans:
Home to center, Mokdong Baseball Stadium
Home plate top center field, Mokdong Baseball Stadium

Mokdong Baseball Stadium was odd in a lot of ways. As with many of the parks in Korea, it was part of a larger sports complex, with multiple stadiums in the same area. It wasn't quite as wedged in as a lot of parks (there was plenty of space to walk around it, for example), but the outfield was right up against a major roadway. Although there was a line of trees to shield the view, right behind the way was a highway. This led to a unique feature in all the pro baseball stadiums I've seen so far. There was no outfield seating at all: no bleachers, no nothing. There was just the two bullpens and the main scoreboard. The entire of the back of the stadium was covered with a high net wall (with some advertisements worked into it, of course), presumably to protect the cars on the highway. It still struck me that an above-average blast could still clear the netting, but I suspect that is part of the reason that the trees were there, as well.

The other major talking point of the stadium was the fact that the Seoul Gun Club had a shooting range there. As I was walking around the outside of the stadium, I saw a big crowd outside an entrance gate, but that entrance gate turned out to be the gun club. It sort of boggled my mind for a while there, as it had a right to do, frankly. It makes sense, I suppose, in that the stadium is a big concrete structure, so you might as well put a gun range in it, but I imagine most of you can imagine the issues if such an idea was transferred over to the States.

Seoul Gun Club
Well-protected

As with Sajik, Mokdong had a tapered design, going from three rows of seats behind home plate and the baselines to one row of seats in the outfield, before stopping where the bleachers would have been. It had an upper-deck walkway in addition to the main ring around the stadium, with its own concessions and the like. The main team store was not its own room, but a concession stand in the middle of the downstairs. As with most of the teams in Korea, they didn't "over-merchandise" like the Japanese, but just had a solid selection of hats, jerseys, balls, and the like.

Mascot
Heroic

The Nexen fans filled the place up on a Thursday night. Presumably because the opposition Bears were just from across town, the visiting section was filled up rather nicely as well. The between-inning festivities were the regular bits and bobs of dancing and skits, although they did have one unique contest. They had couples come up onto the stage at one point, and although I did not quite understand the rules that were explained, the contest quite clearly seemed to be to do squats while carrying your significant other. The one who did it the fastest won. I have to imagine that losing that would lead to all sorts of landmine-filled discussion in the post-event debrief between the couple.


At the Game with Oogie:
Scoring in Korea
First one is the hardest

The patented map-and-mime method nearly failed me on this day. There was a bit of confusion when I was pointing to the seats behind first base, but I eventually got a ticket. When I got inside, I found out why. Except for the areas right behind home plate and on the baselines, it was all open seating, with the Japanese-style "towel on the seat" reservation system. As one of the first ones in, I thought about grabbing the best seat I could, but because I had been shooting photographs through the safety netting for the entire trip so far, I decided to take a seat higher up in the seating bowl so I could get some clear shots during the game. I took a towel out of my bag for this purpose, snagged a seat up on the first base side, and then got on with my picture taking.

In the course of doing that, I realized that the Heroes do the non-traditional arrangement of having the visiting team on the first-base side and the home team on the third-base side. After I took my pictures, I went back and retrieved my towel and trudged on over to the top of the third-base seats and found a seat in the last row behind the stage. It let me look over the net while still giving me a great view of everything else.

I was eventually joined in my perch by a group of twenty-somethings in front of me and families to my left and right. One of the kids in the families had English practice with me, but that was about the end of the interactions. Everyone was very into the game, and one guy in front of me was even watching the TV broadcast of the game on his phone while he was watching it in real life in front of him. Those wacky kids.


The Game:
First pitch, Bears vs. Heroes
First pitch, Bears vs. Heroes

This one was back-and-forth in the most extreme of ways almost from the get-go. The Heroes Caucasian pitcher no-hit the visiting Bears through four and a third innings. It didn't even look like a contest, although the pitcher was backed by two spectacular plays behind him in the field. But the Heroes weren't doing much better, although just enough to have the lead. A one-out triple in the first came home on a suicide squeeze bunt to give the Heroes a lead, but then they only had one baserunner (a hit batsman, erased on a steal attempt) through four innings.

It is said that when no-hitters fall apart, they can fall apart hard and quickly, and that was certainly the case this night. After a meek ground-out to first to start the fourth, the Bears lined a clean single to left to break up the no-no. Four more singles followed, with an errant throw by the first baseman shuffled in, resulting in three runs coming across before a double-play on a fly out to left ended the inning with the Bears now up 3-1.

The Bears had two-out back-to-back singles in the top of the fifth, but a strikeout ended the threat. The Heroes decided to make a game of it again in the bottom of the inning with a one-out triple to right that came home on an error on the third baseman on the throw in. But two quick ground outs left the score 3-2 at the end of five. The Bears had some two-out magic in the sixth, with an infield single, a walk, and another single bringing home a run. The catcher had an error on the throw home, letting everyone advance, but a ground-out to short ended it. The Bears lead 4-2.

Everyone then went in order until the eighth inning, where the Bears lead-off with a walk that made it to third on a sacrifice bunt and a fielder's choice, but got stranded by two straight outs. The Heroes had a one-out single, a walk, and then another short single to load up the bases in their half, but two shallow pop-outs ended the inning with nothing across.

The Bears had a leadoff walk to start the ninth, but it was erased on a double-play and then a ground-out ended the inning. Although the Heroes were just a run behind, their listless play did not hold much hope for the home fans. Two quick outs to start the inning seemed to confirm that script. But the three singles in a row brought in a run and had it first and third with two outs, with the score now tied. And then the opposing pitcher balked in the tying run. The home fans went crazy, and I just sat there wondering what I was seeing. But the Bears could not close this script, either, and a strikeout ended the regulation nine at 4-4.

The Bears apparently didn't want to see it go on much longer, as the top of the tenth saw a one-out single followed by a walk and a single to load the bases, and then another walk to bring in the go-ahead run. This not surprisingly lead to a pitching change, and the new hurler managed to get the next batter to pop out to first. But then he gave up another short single to bring in another run, before inducing a ground-out to end the half-inning at 6-4 Bears. After the ninth, I wasn't sure what to expect from the Heroes, but they decided to go out like chumps, going 1-2-3 in the bottom of the tenth and sending the Bears home 6-4 winners.


The Scorecard:
Bears vs. Heroes, 06-28-12. Bears win, 6-4.Bears vs. Heroes, 06-28-12. Bears win, 6-4.
Bears vs. Heroes, 06/28/12. Bears win, 6-4.

Outside of the no-hitter excitement, there were a number of noteworthy scoring elements in this game. There was the unusual (in America at least) suicide squeeze to bring in the first run of the game. Due to the insane defensive plays to back up the ongoing no hitter, I had to knock out two gems (!) in the second and third on my scorecard. There was also an outfield assist in the top of the fourth as part of a double play (F-7-5-2). Not to mention, of course, the balking in a run in the bottom of the ninth, which was a first for me.

There were also some odd patterns throughout the course of the game. The top of the ninth went "DP 6-6-3" and "6-3." Even weirder, the bottom of the third through the sixth featured two duplicate outs each inning: 6-3 6-3 in the third, 4-3 4-3 in the fourth, 6-3 6-3 in the fifth, and 4-3 4-3 in the sixth. There were an unusual amount of assists from third base on both teams (3 and 4, respectively).


The Accommodations:
Hotel Sutton
Hotel Sutton

For the first part of my last stretch in Seoul, I was staying at the Hotel Sutton, a mid- to upper-range business hotel located smack dab in the middle of the city by one of the major subway junctions. The hotel enforced their check-in time, but let me leave my bag, so I didn't get into my room until the mid-afternoon right before I was heading out to the game.

While perhaps a little on the small side by American standards, it was more than adequate for my needs. The bathroom had a combined shower and tub, and one of the toilets from the future that Asia seems to always have. There was a small desk and two chair underneath the TV across from the bed, which took up all of the opposite wall. In the little alcove between the bathroom and the bedroom, there was a refrigerator and a bunch of items you could buy. They even had some Scotch available, but due to a tragic twist of fate, it was Johnny Walker. So close, Korea, but yet so far.



2012 Korea

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